CONSIGLIO REGIONALE DELLA PUGLIA BIBLIOTECA MULTIMEDIALE & CENTRO DI DOCUMENTAZIONE Teca del Mediterraneo 10 WORKSHOP The knowledge professions: what kind of future? Meeting From the traditional to the digital library: Mediterranean view Hend El Shennawy Bibliotheca Alexandrina Alexandria Egypt Bari, 22/23 June 2007
Vision The world s window on Egypt Egypt s window on the world An instrument for rising to the challenges of the digital age A center for dialogue between peoples and civilizations BA Goals A leader in the digitization, preservation and management of heritage; A center of excellence on specialized topics; An actor in the sustainable development of the city; An innovator in cultural and artistic interaction; An incubator for children s talents; A promoter of science and technology; A catalyst of reform in the region; An apex for networks and partnerships; and A meeting point for dialogue and understanding between people. 183
Components A Public Research Library for 8 Million books Five Specialized Libraries The Internet Archive Seven Research Centers Three Museums A Planetarium Two Permanent Exhibitions Six Art Galleries A Conference Center for 3000 Persons Seven Institutes and a Forum Culture and Heritage Documentation Calligraphy and Writing Special Studies Manuscripts Center ISIS Art Center Alex-Med Dialogue Forum Library Information System (VTLS) Web based Support Arabization Trilingual interface (Arabic, French, English) Integrated with Multimedia system Available 24x7 In-house development tools Payment Card System Automated Circulation Overdue Notices Membership system Cataloging Performance Tracking Circulation Reports and Statistics Customized Reports 184
Internet Archive Million Book project Digital Projects DAR: Digital Asset Repository Universal Digital Book Encoder (UDBE) OACIS: Online Access to Consolidated Information on Serials AMEEL: Arabic and Middle Eastern Electronic Library Digital Projects (Contd) The Digital Modern history of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser Collection Description de L Egypte Boutros Ghaly Collection Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha Collection Al Hilal Collection Alexandria Monuments Scripts Documentation Arab Info Mall Database and Website The Development Gateway 185
Digital Projects (Contd) Supercourse Virtual Immersive Science and Technology Applications (VISTA) Universal Networking Language (UNL) Children My Book: Digital and printed Hole in the Wall LAMAP: La Main a la pate Internet Archive Content Web: 10 billion pages from 1996-2006 Television: 2000 hours of Egyptian and US TV Movies: 1000 archival films 100 Terabytes of data Storage on 200 computers The second copy world wide, after the original copy in San Francisco 186
Goals Long-term: Capture all books in digital format Short-term: Digitize 1 million books by 2008 Provide a test bed to support research areas such as: Scanning techniques Optical character recognition Intelligent indexing Machine translation Information retrieval Goals Automation of the digitization process Integrating the actual content and metadata of varieties of object types into one homogeneous repository Preservation and archiving of digital media produced by the Digital Lab or acquired by the Library in digital format Enhancing the interoperability and seamless access to the Library digital assets 187
Description de l Egypte The work includes 11 plates volumes (950+ pages) 9 text volumes (7500+ pages) Index book The volumes recorded Antiquities Modern state Natural history They described cities, buildings, temples, monuments, arts, animals, plants, minerals, society, etc. Nasser Collection Documents published by the Public Records Office, London, UK (53,000+ pages) Documents published by the United State Department of State (30,000+ pages) Over 1,300 speeches, audio and printed Over 51,000 photos and 1,000 portraits More than 1,000 videos (50+ hours) A complete archive of the articles published in the newspapers The decrees issued by the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) The daily news of the President 188
Nasser Collection Minutes of the Central Committee for Arab Socialist Union (ASU) 140+ handwritten documents with 593 papers A complete archive of the "Bisaraha" articles by Mohammed Hassanein Haikal Caricature, stamps, coins and plastic arts illustrations Books written by and about Nasser More than 1,200 national songs Over 130 Poems Nasser The entire collection has been digitized Database designed and populated with the digital objects and their metadata Backend applications Managing the contents Categorization Adding and refining descriptions Adding keywords Integration of all the different information sources and media under a single interface Front end A web based interface Full text Arabic and English search engine 189
Botroseyya This project aims at digitizing the documents pertaining to the Botros Ghaly family The family has saved a large number of documents related to its political role since the late 1800 s. The project will attempt to digitize the entire multilingual (Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, and Turkish) collection and provide it in searchable form for historians, politicians and researchers. Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha Collection This project aims at digitizing the documents pertaining to Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha, one of the most famous Egyptian Prime Ministers The project will attempt to digitize the entire collection of rich and rare historical documents and materials never been published before provide it in searchable form for historians, politicians and researchers. 190
Al Hilal Overview This project aims to publish an exhaustive digital copy of the issues of Al-Hilal since its first publication in 1892 Al-Hilal is considered the oldest continuously published cultural journal in the Arab world, and the only regular journal that has been issued for more than a hundred years It had a marked effect on the history of the Arab world in general and the history of Egypt in particular It played a leading role in modernizing Arab intellectual thinking, and opened new collaborations towards the cultural evolution OACIS Mission Create a publicly and freely accessible, continuously updated listing of Middle East journals and serials, including those available in print, microform, and online Improve access to Middle Eastern serials in libraries in the United States Europe Middle East Make scholarly literature from, and about, the Middle East widely and easily available to scholars around the world 191
AMEEL Overview Develop an Arabic and Middle Eastern Electronic Library (AMEEL) containing a large collection of significant Middle Eastern resources Bring together qualified partners to create a Middle East electronic library including: Digital representations of traditional materials, Born digital" contemporary materials A service structure for Inter Library Loan Building an access portal Manuscript Center Digital Manuscript Library The first CD set comprises BA s rarest manuscripts such as the Divan of Salama bin-jundal and Qasidat El Burda 192
The Digital Reconstruction of the Pharos Lighthouse Reconstructing a virtual model of the Pharos Lighthouse (on CD and internet) featuring: A seismic study from structural engineering point of view of the collapse of the Pharos; Technology of lenses and hydraulic systems; Relating the underwater archaeological pieces in the site to the lighthouse Displaying how the lighthouse was lit. 193